Author: sanders.798

Blog 5: Octave Chanute

Octave Chanute was born on February 18th, 1832 in Paris, France. Chanute immigrated to the United States in 1838 where he lived for the rest of his life. In his childhood, Chanute attended private schools in New York City and worked on the Hudson River Railroad, and gained a knowledge of basic engineering from doing so. He eventually progressed through the ranks of his railroad work and became the chief engineer of Erie Railroad Company in 1873, and kept this position until 1883. He also contributed to bridge designing at the time.  From his experience in engineering, Octave became fascinated with the idea of flight and compiled important findings of his research in the progress of aviation leading up to his time, and published his findings in a book called “Progress of Flying Machines” in 1893.

 

From here on out, he put all of his efforts into aviation and making flying machines and invested in the youth that were also interested in aviation and aimed to educate them as best as he could. Chanute, along with some of his assistants, made various glider designs. The most successful and significant aviation accomplishment in that time was a glider designed by Chanute that was a multiplane design, and was designed to be sturdy by taking into account some basic building techniques he had learned form railroad and bridge design from his past (picture included below). The design of his successful man carrying glider was modeled after by the Wright Brothers in their endeavor to achieve powered man carrying flight. Chanute visited the Wright Brothers in the later stages of his life and encouraged them while also providing some information and insight about how to move forward with their designs, as he was very interested in powered flight and was invested in future generations to try to help them achieve this feat.

 

Chanute died on November 23rd, 1910, so he was alive during the first Wright Brothers’ flight and was able to influence them and give them his council up until his time of death. He was deemed by the aviation community after his death as the Father of Aviation and the Heavier than Air Flying Machine. Without his brilliant designs for aircraft, the aviation community would have seen much less progress at the time and would likely have changed the advancement of aviation as we know it today. Octave Chanute left behind a powerful legacy and a basis for aircraft design that led to the extremely advanced aircraft designs we have today.

 

 

Blog 4

 

Players: The player(s) in regards to this post would be Southwest Airlines. Southwest airlines, in this case, has the highest interest and the highest power in determining if they will add service to Hawaii and make their service available to the public. The Southwest employees that will make this happen in the airplane, such as the pilots and flight attendant crew, will also have high power and high interest in that they will be ultimately responsible for the safe conduction of the flight.

Subjects: The subjects in this case would be the customers that would be planning on traveling to Hawaii by using Southwest Airlines, as they would have high interest in the service. Frequent flyers with Southwest who may have a lot of Rapid Rewards points who haven’t yet been to Hawaii would have especially high interest, as those Rapid Rewards are obviously only usable on Southwest. Additionally, other low cost carriers who don’t offer service to Hawaii, such as Spirit Airlines for example, would take high interest in this service and how well it does to determine if they too should commence service to Hawaii to compete with Southwest.

Crowd: The crowd in this case would be people who may be interested in going to Hawaii but would not be interested in using Southwest, or people not interested in going to Hawaii at all. This could be because of preference towards another airline, or because of the “crowd’s” preference to not fly at all. Additionally, the crowd could be all of the other airlines who already offer service to Hawaii. This would be of low interest to them as they have already established Hawaii routes, and Southwest would be the ones competing them at first until they establish a large presence in the lower 48 to Hawaii market.

Context Setters: The context setters in this case would be the FAA as they have high power in determining if Southwest can legally operate these Hawaii routes. The FAA must certify that Southwest can operate these routes safely, as Southwest would seek to prove through a series of “proving flights” showing the FAA that their aircraft conform to ETOPS standards and are capable of safely completing the flights (Southwest have just recently completed their first proving flight between Oakland and Honolulu).

 

California for New Year

For the most recent Christmas break, my family took a trip to southern California. We flew into San Diego, which was quite the approach to watch out the window. We came in landing towards the west, which would be on runway 27 there, which brought us in over mountains, and on short final really close to the elevated highway which is right next to the airport. We spent a few days in the San Diego area and did a lot of sightseeing activities and hikes. We went kayaking one day, but unfortunately the water was rougher that day and we couldn’t go near the nearby caves.

After spending about 4 days in the San Diego area, we left on the 5th morning very early to go north to the Los Angeles area to attend the Rose Bowl parade. We hadn’t yet bought tickets for the actual Rose Bowl Game yet as when we booked the vacation, the teams for the game were not yet decided. However, after watching the parade which is definitely as good as people make it sound, we started to walk more towards the stadium which ended up being quite a walk. When we got closer to the stadium, we found a spot to buy last minute tickets for the game and we ended up being able to buy some last minute tickets. The game was very exciting, and the best part about it in my opinion was the scenery in which the stadium is situated in. Looking around kind of messes with your head as it seems like you are looking at really high quality images of mountainous landscape that turn out to be the actual landscape itself. The size of the nearby mountains and the large houses built on those mountains, combined with palm trees and the always blue skies of southern California make it a spot that any college football fan should experience at least once in their life.

After the game and the shocking traffic and public transit jams we sat through, we made it back to where we were staying, which was now a beachside hotel in Oxnard California, which is technically northwest of Los Angeles. We stayed there for about 2 days, which was unlike any beach I had ever seen in terms of how nice it was. On our last day, we took a scenic drive through Malibu and Santa Monica down the Pacific Coast highway on our way to LAX. Once we got to LAX, we went to the famous In n Out Burger that is at the east end of the north runway pair at LAX. This has to be one of my favorite places to go, as you can enjoy a meal while watching airplanes of all sizes come in to land (I included a picture of this in my first post).

The southern California area is so nice, and if costs of living weren’t so expensive I’d definitely consider living out there one day after I got a job with an airline. However, I am eager to see where aviation takes me.

Blog 2

As it is a hot topic currently and is all over any news outlet you may stumble upon, the most recent partial shutdown of the U.S. government has affected many in the Aviation world. At first, we heard about how TSA had staffing concerns at airports across the country as there was an increase in the number of TSA employees calling in sick due to their federal paychecks getting withheld as a result of the partial shutdown. This slowed some security checkpoint lines at various airports, but for the most part, wait times were within standards for TSA and TSA pre, as per a recent TSA press release.

However, recently a new concern related to the partial shutdown and withheld federal paychecks came to surface as New York LaGuardia airport saw slowed down flows of arriving and departing traffic due to ATC staffing concerns. Rather than having a lack of ATC employees on site at LaGuardia, the ATC system saw a shortage of staff at Jacksonville and Washington D.C. Air Traffic Control Centers. The employees at these ATC centers are the controllers that pilots communicate with during the enroute portion of the flight, as well as the departure and arrival portions of flight once the pilots have been handed off by tower controllers and are often times the last people pilots communicate with before being transferred to a tower frequency. Due to this lack, flights from the southern and north eastern United States that were bound for LGA were delayed and held on the ground at their departure airports to accommodate for the lack of ATC employees at these centers. Some flights leaving LGA were also delayed to accommodate.

This is an important issue when considering the importance of communication in the aviation world, as effective communications between ATC and pilots are paramount for the safe operation of flight. Communication with ATC is one of the most important parts of flying, and if there are factors that can affect their operations, the aviation system is presented with a large risk. While the recent shortage of employees only resulted in some delays, it shows how truly important ATC communications are to our system.

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/laguardia-airport-flights-delayed-on-friday-morning-due-to-air-traffic-control-staffing-shortages-2019-01-25-live-updates/

https://www.tsa.gov/news/releases/2019/01/21/tsa-statement-checkpoint-operations-january-21

Kyle Sanders Introduction

 

My name is Kyle Sanders and I am majoring in Air Transportation here at The Ohio State University. I have had a love for aviation my whole life and knew from a very young age that flying for an airline was something I wanted to do one day. Frequent trips to the airport to pick up and drop off my dad who travels frequently for his job sparked my curiosity for aviation and kept it rolling throughout the years. My parents have always been very invested in my interest for all things aviation, and have given every effort they could to contribute to my desires for the Aviation world, whether that be taking me to the airport to watch airplanes takeoff and land, or getting take out for birthday dinners and watching airplanes as we ate. Whenever my family would fly places for vacations or other kinds of trips, i would always look in the cockpit of the plane we were flying on, and more often than not, the pilots would invite me up to take a look. Having seen the cockpit of commercial airplanes in person, I knew for sure that I wanted that to be my office one day.

Over this recent Christmas break, I recieved my Private Pilot License, and will begin training for my Intrument Rating soon. After that, I plan on obtaining my Commercial Rating, CFI, CFII, and ATP certificates over the next couple of years. My main goal after graduation is to join a regional airline as a First Officer when I meet the requirements to do so, and one day move on to a mainline carrier. I admire Southwest Airlines’ business model and fun loving culture, and would love to work for them one day. I also have a fascination for the 777 and 787 aircraft, and think it would be very cool to end up in one of those some day. However, I am not picky when it comes to aviation, and I am eager to see where the aviation world takes me in the coming years.